Since I got started with the DotA 2 beta, my time in League of Legends has dropped off significantly. At first I thought it was just that DotA 2 was a new game and that I might someday reach a point at which I was splitting my time between the two. That hasn’t happened yet, and I honestly don’t see it happening in the near future.
Every time I’ve gone back to League over the past couple weeks, I’ve been sorely disappointed. My games have been quick and unenjoyable, whether winning or losing. Those same kind of games have been happening in DotA on occasion, but with DotA I’m playing enough to balance the bad games with plenty of good. With LoL, that’s just not the case.
I think this is a core part of the MOBA experience, and something MOBA developers may have to address over the next couple years. Though I go into each play session hoping for a hard-fought, drawn out battle, I would bet the majority of games tend to be shorter and fairly one sided, at least to some degree. Once the lopsided game has played out, my inclination is not to walk away; it’s to stay and play until I get the game I was looking for.
This situation isn’t totally unique to the MOBA genre. RTS players have long dealt with a protracted gaming curve, wherein they might spend as much as 70-80 minutes developing a strategy only to be wiped off the map in 90 seconds. In a lot of RTS matches, though, there are things to be learned. Maybe I should have had more resource nodes. Maybe I needed more unit diversity. Maybe my micromanagement needs work. Most competitive RTS matches provide an immediate and actionable feedback loop. That is, the player knows what he/she can do in order to improve their next experience.
With MOBAs, it’s more like two teams of five people trying to throw darts at the same dartboard, all at the same time. If they all get a bull’s-eye, the game is a success. As players start to miss, the game deteriorates. A few people from a team may be playing well, but when there are two people who can’t even hit the board, the game gets dramatically skewed. That actionable feedback loop from RTS games is all but gone. It often doesn’t matter if I’m hitting the bull’s-eye every time (and let’s be clear, I don’t); the failed efforts of my teammates have a dramatic effect on the outcome of the game.
So back to the question at hand – is it possible to play MOBAs casually? I can’t do it. I’ll own that. I can’t just jump into one game, unless that one game is the 50+ minute back-and-forth that MOBA dreams are made of. How do you guys do it? Do you focus in on a small subset of champions? Do you save up your playtime for one long play session every so often? Do you even bother? Sound off in the comments.
Posted in: DotA, Editorial, league of legends
Tags: arts, casual gamers, casual moba, casual players, dota 2, gaming lifestyle, lol, lol vs dota 2, moba, rts
Blizzard dota will be pretty casual. It avoids “burden of knowledge” like some kind of dystopian future out of a crappy scifi novel.
Attackspeed, cooldown reduction armor magic resist NOPE it’s just health, damage, mana and that’s basicaly it. Mana regen comes from total mana. Armor an magic resist are gone so that also does away with damage types. Attackspeed was “too confusing” so that’s out te way side a well.
The most casual moba I ever played was gunbound it’s the simple aim trajectory tank game, but with tons of tanks to choose from each has 3 different shot types to choose from. The game was a blast if a bit repetitive, the real beauty of this game is its turn based multiplayer nature means you and your friends can hop in and blast eachother while you chat it up when it’s not your turn.
I think your troubles with league of legends is lack of premade teams, my premade 5 is a blast and for some insane reason our calculated Elo is top 10% ( Ou rank bounces around #12XX out of over 13000 premade teams) something I find hard to beleive as I like to think we’re average players at best.
Our first match tends to be an easy stomp, and we usualy quit after a crushing loss. But all the games we play inbetween are usualy close and quite a blast. I think your perception of short one sided games comes from short play periods and lack of conistency in player skill each game. Ranked premade 5v5 is much more consistent and enjoyable. (I just got into jungle timing and our team has been crushing people with our more objective based play style)
As for the play style questions I own 2 accounts, one is my main account I use it for solo ranked and 5v5 ranked premades I use this account for “SRS bizznizz” and my other account is a smurf I spent so long on its 30 as well so I can’t exactly call it a smurf there I spam solo que and play what I feel like playing. (my favorite pass time on this account is jungle yi) I tend to be high strung on my main I focus on team comps and meta we use Skype to coordinate team movements, but on my secondary i tend to ignore the meta, and Go with the flow if my pub teammates are getting crushed I focus on the little things to keep cheerful like balls to the walls counter jungleing is always amusing no matter how bad we’re losing.
I totally agree that the lack of premade is a big part of my perception of the game. Here’s the thing, though – isn’t that an average “casual” experience? At least in my mind, casual play means occasional play without much structure. It’s tough to find a premade that plays together often if you’re going to play casually.
I have a lot more fun with the game when playing with friends, even if it means we just lane bot together. It makes the game so much more enjoyable. To that end, though, you need to have a group of friends or the time to develop friends that you can play games with, and I just don’t know how realistic that is for a “casual” gamer.
I’m definitely not trying to put any value judgement on casual vs. otherwise, but I do think these kinds of games are very tough for a casual player to enjoy.
it is possible if you only want to get a game here or there, and the “improvement” or “being good” is not in your needs.
the premade thing that Gameguy301 mentions is a huge factor to me as well. playing a 5v5 cant even compare to solo que (it doesnt even have to be rank, i play normal 5v5 premade draft and its a blast)
the thing is, i play with ppl that knows what they are doing (i.e not “casuals”) so the matches are really enjoyable, they are not my “irl friends” thought, and i personally dont want to play with my “real” friends because of this exact matter: they ARE casuals.
I really dont want to sound like a d-bag, but i dont like playing with them because…they just are not good enough, i dont enjoy playing 5v5 with them, because they are still “learning” the basics. in fact, they dont even care to learn, they just play.
so… imo it is possible to play casual (my friends do it) but dont expect to be very good.
Trust me,there will be a huge tide of idiots coming to Dota2 when it will be released,so it will end up almost as bad as LoL,maybe less because it won’t be free to play,but still.
how do u know it wont be free?
dont destroy my expectations 🙁
Yes it can be casual and it is! I know you keep ragging on Dominion but it was designed perfectly for my needs. I seriously do not have time for much more than Dominion offers, and to be completely honest, since the release of Dominion I significantly cut back on my gaming time and my life is much more enjoyable. I have enough time to focus on other things that bring me much more joy that don’t require the significant time requirements of a traditional MOBA game. I rediscovered my passion for photography, I have become a better husband, and I have become a better employee (hello raises). I believe my priorities have always been straight, but now I have more time to put towards other things and it is great.
Just my two cents.
I totally agree that premade 5s is almost the only way to play this game. I’ve been sitting in gold rating for quite awhile now in solo queue but for every good game I have a bad game and based on talking to other people, that’s an extremely good ration. I just had a hard fought 40 minute game where we had 3 different close dragon fights, I got and managed to keep an oracles at the 11:00 mark and Sivir and I won early, started losing hard as Kog’Maw got built up then turned it around latter with the help of 2 jungle ganks. The game also featured 2 fights where a team decided to invade and steal a buff (1 in each jungle). Winning the third dragon really decided it in our favor and allowed us to take an inhib, back, force a baron fight and win. It was 40 minutes of good gaming, chill teammates and extremely rare in solo queue.
I’ll take a normal game group on vent over solo queue (even duo) any day of the week.
I’m going to agree with the general opinion. I was a solo queue player for over 18 months, with the occasionnal 1 or 2 friends that managed to join me for a game from time to time.
Then I met a few people I like to play with, and we founded our clan. I never go into a game without a full team now (I even refuse to launch the game if there is only 4 of us), and the experience is always enjoyable, even defeats (except when it involves Irelia on the other team, but that’s another issue). It does not mean we get completely destroyed from time to time, but you can’t win them all.
I now even tend to believe having a team/clan/whatever in is even more important than in MMORPGs.